exhibit whatever is hitherto known of the great father of the English drama."

Though Dr. Johnson has here pointed out with his ufual perfpicuity and vigour the true course to be taken by an editor of Shakspeare, some of the positions which he has laid down may be controverted, and fome are indubitably not true. It is not true that the plays of this authour were more incorrectly printed than those of any of his contemporaries: for in the plays of Marlowe, Marston, Fletcher, Maffinger, and others, as many errours may be found. It is not true that the art of printing was in no other age in fo unfkilful hands. Nor is it true, in the latitude in which it is stated, that "these plays were printed from compilations made by chance or by stealth out of the feparate parts written for the theatre:" two only of all his dramas, The Merry Wives of Windfor and K, Henry V. appear to have been thus thrust into the world, and of the former it is yet a doubt whether it is a first sketch or an imperfect copy. I do not believe that words were then adopted at pleafure from the neighbouring languages, or that an antiquated diction was then employed by any poet but Spenfer. That the obfcurities of our authour, to whatever cause they may be referred, do not arife from the paucity of contemporary writers, the present edition may furnish indisputable evidence. And lastly, if it be true, that "very few of Shakspeare's lines were difficult to his audience, and that he ufed fuch expreffions as were then common," (a pofition of which I have not the smallest doubt,) it cannot be true, that "his reader is embarraffed at once with dead and with foreign languages, with obfoleteness and innovation."

"When

When Mr. Pope first undertook the task of revifing these plays, every anomaly of language, and every expreffion that was not understood at that time, were confidered as erreurs or corrruptions, and the text was altered, or amended, as it was called, at pleasure. The principal writers of the early part of this century feem never to have looked behind them, and to have confidered their own era and their own phraseology as the standard of perfection: hence from the time of Pope's edition, for above twenty years, to alter Shakspeare's text and to restore it, were confidered as fynonymous terms. During the last thirty years our principal employment has been to reflore, in the true fenfe of the word; to eject the arbitrary and capricious innovations made by our predeceffors from ignorance of the phraseology and customs of the age in which Shakspeare lived.

As on the one hand our poet's text has been described as more corrupt than it really is, fo on the other, the labour required to investigate fugitive allusions, to explain and justify obsolete phrafeology by parallel paffages from contemporary authours, and to form a genuine text by a faithful collation of the original copies, has not perhaps had that notice to which it is entitled; for undoubtedly it is a laborious and a difficult tafk: and the due execution of this it is, which can alone entitle an editor of Shakspeare to the favour of the publick.

I have faid that the comparative value of the various ancient copies of Shakspeare's plays has never been precisely ascertained. To prove this, it will be neceffary to go into a long and minute difcuffion, for which,

however,

however, no apology is neceffary: for though to explain and illuftrate the writings of our poet is a principal duty of his editor, to afcertain his genuine text, to fix what is to be explained, is his firft and immediate object and till it be established which of the ancient copies is entitled to preference, we have no criterion by which the text can be ascertained.

Fifteen of Shakspeare's plays were printed in quarto antecedent to the first complete collection of his works, which was publifhed by his fellow-comedians in 1623. These plays are, A Midsummer-Night's Dream, Love's Labour's Loft, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, The Two parts of K. Henry IV. K. Richard II. K. Richard III. The Merchant of Venice, K. Henry V. Much ado about Nothing, The Merry Wives of Windfor, Troilus and Creffida, King Lear, and Othello.

The players, when they mention these copies, reprefent them all as mutilated and imperfect; but this was merely thrown out to give an additional value to their own edition, and is not ftrictly true of any but two of the whole number; The Merry Wives of Windfor, and K. Henry V.-With refpect to the other thirteen copies, though undoubtedly they were all furreptitious, that is, stolen from the playhouse and printed without the consent of the authour or the proprietors, they in general are preferable to the exhibition of the fame plays in the folio; for this plain reason, because, instead of printing these plays from a mañufcript, the editors of the folio, to fave labour, or from fome other motive, printed the greater part of them from the very copies which they reprefented as

maimed and imperfect, and frequently from a late, inftead of the earliest, edition; in some instances with additions and alterations of their own. Thus therefore the first folio, as far as refpects the plays above enumerated, labours under the difadvantage of being at least a fecond, and in fome cafes a third, edition of thefe quartos. I do not however mean to say, that many valuable corrections of paffages undoubtedly corrupt in the quartos are not found in the folio copy; or that a fingle line of these plays fhould be printed by a careful editor without a minute examination, and collation of both copies; but thofe quartos were in general the basis on which the folio editors built, and are entitled to our particular attention and examination as first editions.

It is well known to those who are converfant with the business of the prefs, that, (unlefs when the authour corrects and revifes his own works,) as editions of books are multiplied, their errours are multiplied alfo; and that confequently every fuch edition is more or lefs correct, as it approaches nearer to or is more diftant from the firft. A few inftances of the gradual progrefs of corruption will fully evince the truth of this affertion.

In the original copy of K. Richard II. 4to. 1597, A& II. fc. ii. are thefe lines:

"You promis'd, when you parted with the king, To lay afide life-harming heaviness.”

In a fubfequent quarto, printed in 1608, instead of life-harming we find HALF-harming; which being perceived by the editor of the folio to be nonfenfe, he fubftituted, instead of it,-SELF-harming heaviness.

In

In the original copy of K. Henry IV. P. I. printed in 1598, Act IV. fc. iv. we find

"And what with Owen Glendower's abfence thence, " (Who with them was a rated finew too,)" &c.

In the fourth quarto printed in 1608, the article being omitted by the negligence of the compofitor, and the line printed thus,

"Who with them was rated finew too,"

the editor of the next quarto, (which was copied by the folio,) instead of examining the first edition, amended the errour (leaving the metre ftill imperfect) by reading

"Who with them was rated firmly too."

So, in the fame play, Act I. fc. iii. instead of the reading of the earliest copy

Why, what a candy deal of courtesy—”

caudy being printed in the first folio instead of candy, by the accidental inverfion of the letter n, the editor of the fecond folio corrected the errour by fubftituting gawdy.

So, in the fame play, Act III. fc. i. instead of the reading of the earliest impression,

"The frame and huge foundation of the earth-" in the fecond and the fubfequent quartos, the line by the negligence of the compofitor was exhibited without the word huge:

"The frame and foundation of the earth-"

and the editor of the folio, finding the metre imperfect, supplied it by reading,

"The frame and the foundation of the earth.”

Another